The world changed at 8:45 AM, September 11th, 2001. Over 3,000 innocent civilians died at the hands of al-Qaeda members, an Islamic terrorist group in the Middle East. 19 members hijacked four commercial airplanes with concealed knives, flying two directly into the Twin Towers in New York, flying one other into the U.S. Pentagon, and the last one being reclaimed by passengers before the aircraft crashed into a Pennsylvania field, killing everyone on board but heroically saving the possible thousands of lives of the planes intended target.

The attacks came unsuspected, and the aftershocks are still felt today by those who witnessed it, who watched the live broadcasts, and especially by those who lost family and friends in the attacks.

“I remember waking up to my alarm clock for work and instead of music, there were a lot of people talking instead,” Mr. Matthew Damiani said. “So I went into the living room and turned the TV on and that’s when I saw the first building go down.”

The first attack resulted in nationwide confusion. The plane crash was thought to possibly be an accident; it took a heart breaking scene for everyone to fully realize the sincerity and devastation of the situation.

“They were talking about something else,” Mrs. Sharon Romero said. “And as they were talking I saw the second plane come across the screen live and hit the second tower. My husband picked up the kids and for the rest of the day we watched the clips on the television.”

Of the 3,000 lives that were taken that day, over 400 were police officers and fire fighters. This day strikes the hearts of those hardest who had friends and family die in the attacks.

“I lost a friend there,” Damiani said. “He was a New York policeman, and was one of the first to go in. I don’t know too much about it but he was in the building when it went down. It was just a day you can never forget.”

For those who weren’t alive or were too young to understand what was happening on 9-11, it can sometimes be hard to feel the rage and sadness that is felt by those who witnessed the events, but the day should always be remembered, and it’s victims should always be honored.

“You guys are young and you don’t remember and you don’t understand 9-11 in it’s entirety.” Romero said.  “You all think you know, but you don’t. It will become one of those issues in history that will become cleaned up and put in a nice tidy box and it should never, never be that way.”